Eileen ‘Tirzah’ Garwood attended Eastbourne School of Art
(1925–28), where she was taught by Eric Ravilious (1903–1942)
whom she married in 1930.

She first exhibited in 1927, at the Redfern Gallery, and an early
woodcut shown at the 1927 SWE exhibition received significant
praise in The Times. Such was the originality of her printmaking that
she exerted an influence over Ravilious’ own wood engravings. She
was also commissioned by the BBC in 1928 to illustrate Granville
Bantock’s The Pilgrim’s Progress, and made whimsical but exacting
observational pictures that were popular with children and exhibited
by the Society for Education in Art.

While recovering from emergency mastectomy surgery in 1942
she wrote her autobiography, Long Live Great Bardfield & Love to
You All (published posthumously in 2012). After Ravilious’ death
that same year, Garwood remained in Essex until her remarriage
in 1946. She was again diagnosed with cancer in 1948 and died
in 1951. In 1952, a memorial exhibition was held at the Towner
Gallery in Eastbourne.